


what once was mine

by floweryfran



Series: it is you i love more than anyone [2]
Category: Iron Man (Comics), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Comfort, Ben Parker - Freeform, Ben Parker Lives, Dead May Parker (Spider-Man), Iron Dad, Irondad, May Parker is dead, Parent Tony Stark, Peter Parker Angst, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker is a Mess, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Spider-son, Teen Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, ben parker is so good, irondad and spider-son, spiderson, whump and comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:00:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22286002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweryfran/pseuds/floweryfran
Summary: Peter has a secret.It isn’t—it isn’t like the other secrets he has. Spider-Man; Tony Stark; his debilitating fear of birds. Flash. Skip. He broke his mother’s vase, not the cat. He drank some of Ben’s good vodka on a bad night and watered the bottle down to make it look fuller. He keeps buttons he finds in his nightstand drawer in a box that once held a watch.It is, he thinks, worse.—or, the one where everything went entirely differently.
Relationships: Ben Parker & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: it is you i love more than anyone [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1676065
Comments: 113
Kudos: 702





	what once was mine

Peter has a secret. 

It isn’t—it isn’t like the other secrets he has. Spider-Man; Tony Stark; his debilitating fear of birds. Flash. Skip. He broke his mother’s vase, not the cat. He drank some of Ben’s good vodka on a bad night and watered the bottle down to make it look fuller. He keeps buttons he finds in his nightstand drawer in a box that once held a watch. 

It is, he thinks, worse. 

It is ripe in his mind in moments like these—quiet moments, where the air is still and warm and a chorus of cheering children sound around him, his eyes closed against the burden of the sun, knees pointed upwards and hands folded between the back of his head and the surface of the plastic dinosaur spring-rider he’s reclining on—the very moments he shouldn’t be thinking of it. 

“Pete,” comes a call. 

“Yep?” he says without opening his eyes. 

A shadow blocks the glare from his eyes. “You ready for dinner, buddy?” it says. 

“Hm,” Peter says. His body feels heavy and languid, like he’s melting into the plastic, horribly sticky and loose. “Five more minutes?” he suggests. 

Ben lets loose a low, rumbly chuckle. “Sure thing. Five minutes. Then hot dogs.”

“The hottest dogs in the city,” Peter says. 

“You know it. Only the diggity-est dogs for us.” Ben’s knuckles tap the side of Peter’s chin, and then the shadow is gone. The sun aches on his eyelids. 

“Wiener,” Peter says, just loud enough for Ben to hear as he retreats. 

“Who raised you, wolves?” Ben calls back. 

Peter hums, even though Ben won’t hear it. 

He suns himself for every last ripe moment of the five minutes he gets, relishing in the burn along his cheekbones, his nose, his upper lip. By the time he rises, his hairline is damp and his shirt sticks to his back. 

Ben shoots him a two-fingered salute from the bench where he’s going through the mail—the bills. Endless bills. Peter’s feet find the soil and he stands, runs his fingertips over the static-charged spring-rider seat. Watches it bounce. Pulls himself away. Feels colder. 

He sits next to Ben on the bench. The wood chafes against his thighs. 

Ben holds up one finger, like _one minute, kiddo, just one more minute,_ and Peter waits. He watches the kids running with untied shoes, with sweaty curls down their necks, with grass stained knees and dirt under their fingernails and orange juice on their breath. 

Ben claps Peter’s shoulder. Peter jumps. 

“Zoned out?” Ben says dryly, grinning behind his glasses, eyes wrinkled at the corners. Peter doesn’t have Ben’s eyes—doesn’t have the same green spots, flecks of yellowish gold, black-rims like mossy dirt. He has his mother’s. Just brown, brown, brown. Nothing special. 

“Mhm,” says Peter. 

Ben stares at him a moment too long. “Let’s head home,” he says. He stands. Holds a hand out for Peter to take, and he does. Ben squeezes. Peter squeezes back. 

Peter has always felt short walking next to Ben. Ben’s taller than Peter's father was, longer, lankier. Peter is waifish, impish, small. Unlike Ben. Nothing special. 

They eat their hot dogs on the couch while watching Property Brothers. 

“I don’t like the way they mixed prints with the cushions on that loveseat,” Ben observes, gesturing with his hot dog. He has mustard on his fingers, in the edges of his beard. 

“Clashes,” Peter agrees. Ben has always liked interior design and architecture. Ben has an office job in Bed-Stuy for a lawyer with an attitude problem and a dog that is possibly half-goat. Things don’t always work out for Parkers. 

Peter’s bedroom is perhaps the place where the least number of things work out for him, per capita. This night is no different. 

He dreams in spots of red and grey, in a thud behind his eyes and a cutting pain in his gut, in an evil cackle of a laugh that is all his mind’s creation. He sees May walking towards him and he goes weak, calls her name, but as she comes closer he sees. She’s soaked with red, her fingertips are decomposed down to the bone. What skin she has left is sallow, like wet paper, pellucid, he can see her heart beat beneath the bones of her chest. She opens her mouth and a moth flies out. Clicking beetles. A grub. A skittering snake. 

Peter wakes up. 

He claws his way out of the sheets, sweat soaked and shuddering, and finds his feet on the carpet, squishes it between his toes, puts his hands on the edge of the mattress, presses down, gags, runs to the bathroom. 

Ben finds him with his bruised knees against the tile floor, resting his cheek against the toilet rim, eyes closed, hands shaking, breath lilting. 

Ben doesn’t say a word. He wets a washcloth, wipes the sweat from Peter’s forehead. Sits himself between Peter’s back and the tub, leans against the porcelain, pulls Peter’s back flush against his chest, and holds him until he pukes again, and once more. 

Ben spends the night in Peter’s bunk with him. Peter leaves his head on Ben’s chest. When his alarm goes off at six and he sees Ben’s face, he’s sure Ben didn’t sleep at all. 

He hugs Ben extra hard before he leaves for school. 

The ride on the train is spent in a strange sort of daze. He remembers tapping his foot along to maybe two of the ten songs he gets through; ignores a text from Ned asking about a history outline he didn’t complete; feels overwhelming levels of nothing even though he should be hungry for a breakfast he didn’t eat, he should be tired for a sleep he didn’t get, he should be longing for a pair of arms he won’t get squished in again.

Ned is waiting for him at his locker when he finally arrives, wearing his biggest, most comfy sweatshirt. It’s sherpa. As soon as he sees Peter, he peels it off and yanks it over Peter’s head. 

Peter says, “No, you’ll be cold.”

Ned says, in a delicate sort of voice, “Dude.”

Peter takes off his backpack and slips his arms into the sweatshirt. It swamps him. It’s glorious—it must be; it’s from Ned. It hides the layers of Peter in a shroud of something better. Who could call him imperfect, toxic, when they can’t find him within the grey folds. Who.

Peter loses periods one through three. They slip into one ear and out of the other like scrambled alphabet soup all while he blinks burgundy red and his ears ache with a gunshot distant yet. 

Ned sits arm to arm with him during lunch. Michelle arrives later and, without stopping so much as to think, does the same. Peter thinks he ought to be warm, sandwiched between them. He shoves his pizza sticks around with his fork. Prods the stiff jello cup with the tines. Strawberry. Red. Red. Red. 

“Peter,” Ned says. “Peter.”

“Yeah,” says Peter.

“Call out of the internship,” MJ says.

“I—can’t,” says Peter.

“Uh, yes you absolutely can,” says Ned, “Mister Tony Stark Iron Sir is your _friend._ You can call out of work. Just tell him you don’t feel, uh, up to it.”

Peter stares at his lunch tray. 

“Okay,” he says, and rises slowly. He leaves the tray there. Looks at MJ. “You can have my pizza sticks,” he says, “because I know you have been staring them down for the entire period.”

“So he has awareness,” MJ says dryly, already dipping one of them in chunky, oregano-filled marinara.

Peter heads to the bathroom. Closes himself in the wheelchair stall. Punches Tony’s number into his keypad. Stares at it. 

Locks his phone. Sticks it in his pocket. Goes to the library to wait for his next class.

Ned catches up with him in AP Calc. “Hey,” he says, “hey, did you call Mister Stark?”

“No,” Peter says. His mouth feels like it’s full of cotton wool.

“Peter, what,” says Ned. “Do you, do you want me to? I can do that, if you need me to. I’ll actually talk on the phone with Tony Frickin Stark without stuttering if you—okay, actually, I can’t promise that, because _holy shit_ you’re friends with Iron Man but like, I can try, for you, because I’d carry Mount Kilimanjaro across the Indian Ocean one grain of dirt at a time for you.”

“I’ll do it,” Peter says, but his throat opens a little. “Thanks—Ned.”

Ned pats the back of his hand and smiles a little. “Of course, dude.”

Peter finally pulls his phone back out once last period has let loose. He’s skipping decathlon at MJ’s firm insistence—which never happens, ever, like, once MJ made him go to practice with a bullet still in his thigh, so he knows it must seem bad from the outside—so he’s got time to tell Happy not to leave the tower to pick him up.

His phone feels terribly heavy, enormous. A cinder block, but made of a hunk of ununoctium. 

He dials the number. Tony picks up after two rings. 

_“Hey, kid! What’s up? Wait, first, I was thinking of ordering Chinese from that place with the spring rolls you really like, what do you—?”_

“I can’t come to the internship today,” Peter interrupts. The words feel like flechettes off his tongue. They could crack his teeth. “I’m really sorry, something… came up.” 

A beat passes.

_“Okay,”_ Tony says easily. _“No worries, kiddo, you handle whatever you need to handle. No hard feelings.”_

“Thank you,” Peter says, but it comes out more desperate than he would have liked. “I, uh, I can still come to the Compound this weekend, if that’s, uh, okay.”

_“Of course,”_ Tony says, and it’s maybe more emphatic than it normally would be. _“Hey, if something got in the way today, do you just want to do a little switcheroonie with today and tomorrow? You can come to the tower tomorrow instead, sleep there, and then Happy can bring the two of us to the Compound Saturday morning for training and movie night?”_

Peter aches terribly. “Uh, sure,” he says. “Yeah, that would be, that would be great. Thanks, Tony.”

_“No sweat, buddy. I’m looking forward to it.”_

“Uh, me too. Yeah.”

_“Peter,”_ Tony says quietly. _“Are you okay? Really, don’t, don’t give me bullshit. I’m asking because I care to know.”_

Peter says, “I’m fine. No worries, I’m, I’m good.”

_“Yeah?”_

“Yeah.”

Peter hears Tony sigh. _“Okay. If that answer changes… I’m, uh, an open ear.”_

Peter feels his chest close, eyes burn. Tony isn’t always the type to be like _this_ , soft and sweet. He’s always open, sure, he’s kind, generous, he’s great, but sweet? It unseats something in Peter, makes him all at once desperate for it and terrified of it, terrified of Tony, terrified of this strange relationship they have. 

As Peter walks through the school’s double doors, he says, “I’ve got to—do things, busy, busy, I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow, okay? Sorry again.”

_“It’s not an issue, kid.”_ Tony has something bleeding in his voice. Some raw, low saturation thing that feels untouched. Like it’s never been seen. It’s so good, so good Peter is nauseous. His next breath stutters like a mallet dragged over xylophone keys. _“Have a good afternoon doing your… things,”_ Tony adds.

Peter gives a forced laugh. “Yeah, I, I will. Bye, Tony.”

_“Bye, bud.”_

Peter hangs up first. Breathes again.

He walks down the sidewalk feeling like it’s endless, like it’ll lead him straight into the ocean. He wouldn’t notice, not even if his socks got wet. 

He picks up a single rose from a street vendor. 

“Got a date?” says the salesman, grinning. 

“Yeah,” Peter says. 

“Good luck,” says the salesman, already onto the next customer. 

Peter carries it like glass. 

“Hey,” he says. “Hey, May.” He sits on the grass beside the headstone, his legs crossed. He taps the stone twice. “I’m here, so I hope you’re—awake, listening good.” 

He picks up the flower. Places it on the mound where the earth had once been overturned for her. “For you,” he explains. “Pink, cuz, cuz you liked ‘em that way.”

He likes to imagine how she might react. Brushing the hair off his forehead and planting a kiss in the space. Squeezing his nose. _My sweet Pete,_ she would’ve said, grinning. 

“I love you,” he says quickly. “So much. And I miss you. Ben and I are, we’re doing our best. We’re okay, we are, it’s just that we. Uh, we miss you. But I hope you’re doing good, schmoozing it up with dead—Frank Sinatra, or whoever.” Peter sniffles. His chest is tight. “Tell mom and dad I say hi. And send Ben some dreams that are distinctly pro-cat. ‘Cuz I want one. But he said no. Uh, yeah.” He sits in silence for what feels like a long time. The air is still and warm. 

He blinks hard. “Um. I’ll see you soon, okay? Okay. Love you. Bye.” 

Peter leans forward and plants a quick kiss against the rough edge of the stone. He stands, traces his eyes over the loops in May’s name, shoves his hands in his pockets. Heads home. 

As soon as he crests the threshold, his knees knock out from under him. For a moment he thinks he’s been attacked, and he’s scared, before he realizes it’s just him. He’s fallen. He hunches forward, elbows on the floor, and lets out a sob that echoes between the walls of the apartment. 

It could raise the dust from the picture frames. It could shake the glass in the cabinets, curl the edges of the posters on the walls. 

He cries so hard it hurts his throat, his head, his eyes, his chest. Convulsive, full cries. 

Ben comes hurtling around the corner in his socks, glasses falling down his nose, hair wet from a shower. He skids when he stops on the hardwood. 

“Honey,” says Ben, wrecked. “Hon. Pete. Come here.” But then he doesn’t wait for Peter to mop himself off the entry rug. He scrambles onto the floor in front of Peter, holds out his arms. 

Peter says, _“Ben.”_

Ben’s biceps are thick, even if his wrists are small. Peter doesn’t fit perfectly in Ben’s arms. It’s disjointed, pointy elbows, and Ben’s collarbone digging into Peter’s neck to the point of pain against his impulsive swallowing. His throat stings. 

“Oh, Pete,” Ben says. “My Peter.”

Peter cries, and he cries, and he calls himself Judas, unworthy of repenting. He fists his hands in Ben’s shirt and he knows he’s stretching it, but he needs to—hold on. To keep from falling into shards like what’s left after the pillaging of a pharaoh’s tomb. 

Peter has seen Ben cry. Has laid in bed next to a tear-glazed, blank Ben, staring at the ceiling, shoulder to shoulder and absolutely flayed, his ribs open to the elements, his eyes swollen and fixed. 

This is different. This is not silent tears, or shaking shoulders, or hiccups. This is weeping, this is Ben’s nose poking into the side of Peter’s head, his tears sliding over the curve of Peter’s ear, his heart racing wild against the front of Peter’s shoulder. 

“It’s okay,” Ben gasps. “This is—okay. Good, it’s good for us to—let it out.”

Peter’s hand finds the back of Ben’s head, scritches his nails through the ends of his hair. 

“Ben,” Peter says. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I am, too,” says Ben. “Me, too.”

They take the time to collect themselves. They wipe their noses on their shirts and Ben dries the tears from Peter’s cheeks with his sleeve. Ben presses a kiss to Peter’s forehead before they stand. 

No words are exchanged, but they end up in Ben’s bed: far too big for one man, one half perpetually rumpled and the other meticulously made—the way May would have kept it. 

“Do you want to stay home from school tomorrow?” Ben asks. May would not have offered. 

“Uh,” Peter says. Then, “Can I decide in the morning?”

“Of course,” Ben says. 

Peter stretches his hand out blindly, finds Ben’s. Latches on. Watches the ceiling fan spin. A blur of mahogany wood. 

“I don’t think I’ll go to the internship, though,” Peter whispers. “Not—tomorrow. I’ll ask if I can just wait and meet him upstate for training Saturday.” 

“Take the day for yourself,” Ben elaborates. “Good. That’s good. Even spider-kids need a break. Especially spider-kids, probably.”

Peter stays silent. 

“You should talk to Tony,” Ben says quietly. “Explain why you can't come in. He’ll understand. He’s understood everything else.”

Ben isn’t wrong, perhaps. But it doesn’t change the fact that Peter never- never- wants to put into words what is ripping him into terrible, bloody pieces. 

“Maybe,” Peter says. 

“Tony’s lost a lot,” Ben says. “He might even be able to—give you advice.”

“Tony is more likely to go into a guilt frenzy and build me a fully functional replica of R2-D2 than he is to give me actual, genuine advice,” Peter says. This is actually a bald-faced lie. Tony doles out advice like he doles out money: with a heavy hand and absolutely no restraint. 

But it makes Ben laugh. Peter thinks it sounds like rolling in the grass beneath the stare of August’s sun. 

“I’ll… maybe,” Peter says. “Oh, man. I dunno. I don’t like talking to humans.”

“You’re talkin’ to me.”

“You don’t count,” Peter says, shaking the hands they still have clenched together. 

Ben raises them to his lips, presses a long kiss against Peter’s knuckles. “You’ll figure it out, buddy. There’s no hurry, either way.” 

“It’s not like I’ll run out of grief before I see Tony next,” Peter says dryly. 

“We could fill up the Grand Canyon, the two of us together,” Ben says. 

“Repaint the stars blue,” says Peter. 

“This one might be—a stretch, but I bet we could even fill up an entire Big Gulp cup—“

Peter laughs aloud, startling and sweet. 

Ben turns his head towards Peter to watch it happen. He’d missed it. 

-

Peter takes off school Friday. Calls Tony, again, and asks if they can push off their meeting, again. Tony says yes. Again. 

Peter and Ben spend the day on the couch. Peter listens to Ben’s heart beat, a bit of mood music in the background of Toy Story and A Bug’s Life and Coco. They make popcorn and eat it for breakfast and lunch. Ben makes pancakes for dinner. They sleep on the couch until the ringing of Peter’s cell phone rouses them at eight-and-change. 

“Aw, man,” Peter says instead of hello. 

“I’m literally outside,” says Happy. 

“Aw, man,” Peter repeats. 

Happy hangs up. 

Ben stretches, makes a throaty sound, and wraps both arms tight around Peter’s shoulders. “You okay, buddy?”

“Yeah,” Peter says quickly. Ben peers up at him, dark circles under his eyes. “I will be,” Peter amends. 

Ben grunts. “Damn right you will be. Cuz you’re awesome.” He withdraws from around Peter, claps his hands onto his thighs, and stands. “I’ll grab you a snack for the road.” He pats Peter’s head and goes into the kitchen. 

Peter feels a wave of guilt smack him nearly sideways and his eyes sting with the salt of it. He takes two deep breaths. Stands. Collects his things from his room. Changes into real person clothes, rubs some deodorant on. Gels his rat's nest of curls down. 

Ben is dropping a granola bar into a brown paper bag when Peter makes it back into the kitchen with his backpack. Peter watches Ben roll the top of the bag closed, frown, grab a marker, and label the bag with Peter’s name and a poorly drawn apple. 

“You should’ve gone to art school,” Peter says. 

Ben startles. Holds the bag aloft. “Yeah, I know, right?”

“MoMA, here you come.” 

“This isn’t—this isn’t modern art,” Ben says. “Modern art is like fast fashion. _This_ is never going out of style.”

Peter snorts and takes the bag. Shakes his head, steps forward, hugs Ben tight. “Bye, Ben,” he mutters. 

“Try to have fun,” Ben says back, squeezing, rocking them side to side. 

“Call me if you need me,” Peter says. 

Ben pulls back and takes Peter’s chin in his hand. “You little hypocrite,” says Ben. He squeezes Peter’s nose. “Go on, before you give Happy a coronary.”

Peter goes, regretting it as soon as the door shuts behind him. 

“Hey, kid. Late kid,” says Happy when Peter opens the car door. 

“Hey, Hap,” Peter mumbles. He pulls up his hood. Sticks in a pair of earbuds. Closes his eyes. Tries to ignore the warm air around him and the light from the windows for a few delicious hours. 

He’s, for the first time in his life, upset to arrive at the Compound. 

Tony waits for him in the living room rather than the lab, where he usually already is, setting up or cleaning up or hiding some destroyed bits of something that was once a thing but no longer is due to Tony’s ambition or DUM-E’s heavy hand. Peter feels the last one would’ve been awfully poetic today.

Tony’s draped in an old MIT sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants and he still looks more put together than Peter could ever dream of being. Peter is a floating head and two fragmented arms and two awkward legs pulled off from the whole of his core. Tony is entire, and bold, and perfect.

Peter says, “Hey, Sharks, my name is Peter Parker and I’m here to present my newest invention, the Towel Ringer Three Thousand.”

Tony’s lips quiver. “I almost want to hear more about it.”

“Rings out your towel for you,” Peter says, tossing his backpack onto the floor beside the couch. He falls onto the cushions beside Tony, crosses his arms. “What more could you want?”

“A smoothie, maybe.”

“You ask too much.”

“Meh,” Tony says, before tilting his head. “You know what? Maybe you’re right. I ask the same from DUM-E and you know what he gives me? He gives me a cup of motor oil and ammonia. And then I have to pretend to drink it to make him happy! Can you even believe he’s so high maintenance.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, “you made him.”

“Oh, that was low, Underoos.”

“Learned from the best,” Peter says. 

“I am quite talented with sarcasm,” Tony nods. “I wield it like a weapon made just for me. Mjolnir who?”

“Oh, that’s—awkward,” Peter says. “I was actually referring to Ben.”

“Speaking of…” Tony says, and Peter claps his hands over his eyes.

“I thought my avoidance tactics were working, like, so well,” he says.

“Nah,” says Tony. “You look like your consciousness is out in the stratosphere, buddy.”

“It is.”

_“Esattamente il mio punto,”_ Tony says, snapping his fingers. “We can work on that not being the case.”

“Tony,” Peter sighs.

“I might have had a chat with your unreasonably attractive uncle—“

“Oh my _g-d.”_

“Was that out of bounds? Pepper agrees with me, y’know, he’s a looker, really—“

“Tony,” Peter says, and this time Tony gets it. He stops. 

“Sorry,” Tony says. “My bad. That wasn’t the point of—anyway.” He clears his throat. “He said you were upset, and I know we shouldn’t be gossiping behind your back or anything but we’re both worried about you, kid. Really—worried.” 

Peter stares forward. 

“I know there’s something eating you,” Tony says. “I know what it looks like to have that and it’s—you, to a T, you’re the picture of, like, voracious guilt.”

Peter’s mind takes the opportunity to kick him right in the ass. Like a fucking tape, one of those old fashioned circular ones, and a projector that clicks, spraying Peter’s Greatest Hits onto the inside of his skull. 

The sound of the bullet, the way it echoed from the mouth of the gun, the way it whistled when it ripped through the air, the wet thud as it nailed May’s stomach, the strange squelch as it cut straight through. It hit her spine. That’s where it stopped; after it bumped her spine. Peter heard it bouncing back through the bloody tunnel it had carved. 

The way May’s breath stuttered. The way the man dropped his gun before he ran. 

Peter’s own voice, the yell ripped from the pit of his gut, thrown out into the night like an offering. Hades took it. Took it and buried it in a garden. A piece of Peter’s soul. Persephone tends to it, waters it with Phlegethon flames, and he’s been roasting ever since. 

His thumbs are digging into his eyes. He can sense Tony’s hand hovering over his shoulder without seeing it. 

And still the tape turns. Because this is it. This is the climax of the film, they would bar the doors of the theater shut to make sure no one misses it. This is—Peter wants to claw his way into his chest and tear it out, snip the bit of his brain that holds onto this, that will never let him forget it. 

After he watched May fall, red-stained and limp. After he shook her and she said for him to be brave and kind, after her eyes closed. 

A dirty, sly part of him, grey and saggy skinned, with pointed teeth and a crooked nose and a back with a hunch, heard the words of the EMT, _she’s gone,_ and thought, immediately, without a moment of pause, _thank G-d it wasn’t Ben._

He doesn’t want to put it into words. He can’t, it’s like taboo, like his tongue will shrivel and fall out of his mouth if he tries. 

“Peter,” Tony says loudly. “Come back.”

Peter jumps on the couch, the springs squeaking. 

“Sorry,” Tony says. “You were—yeah.” 

“Yeah,” Peter says. He’s shivering. 

“You don’t have to tell me.”

“I,” Peter says. “I think I have to.”

“You don’t have to,” says Tony. 

“No,” Peter says. “You were right, you were right it’s ripping me apart, it’s like, it’s an open wound, Tony, I have to, I have to tell you.”

“Okay,” Tony says. 

“The night May died,” Peter starts, and is subsequently so shocked that the words came out without choking him that his next breath wheezes and he needs a moment to recover. “The night she died, I was—I don’t know if you know, I was there, I, I watched.”

Tony nods. 

“She, uh,” Peter runs a hand through his hair, pulls. Tony carefully unloops it. Doesn’t let it go. Peter squeezes his fingers. “She took the bullet for me,” Peter says. “Jumped in front of me. Pushed me—pushed me over. And I had my powers already, I would’ve lived, she didn’t know, she didn’t—“

“There’s no way for you to know you wouldn’t have died,” Tony says, and Peter says _“No,”_ because Tony doesn’t understand. This isn’t the worst of it. It’s not. 

“Tony,” Peter says. Leans forward over his knees and shakes. “When she died, I was grateful it wasn’t Ben,” he whispers. “I saw her dead body, she was, she was, she was my mom, I spent my whole life at her side, and she was dead, and I was thankful it wasn’t Ben.”

It’s out. Done. Like cigarette smoke hanging in the air in front of him, dark grey and stinking and cancerous, and he wants to swipe a hand through it. Loosen it. Get it gone. Get it _gone._

“When I learned that my father died first,” says Tony, and Peter is so shocked by the apparent topic change that he looks up, “I thought _good. He got less time on Earth.”_ Tony closes his eyes. “The last thing my mother ever did was watch her husband get the life choked out of him and I had the audacity to think that. Her last seconds—I bet she would’ve traded them for anything. And yet.” Tony’s eyes fall open. He turns to Peter, ancient. “Does that make me unforgivable?”

“Of course not,” says Peter. “Of course not. But—“

“If you’re about to say _it’s different_ then so help me G-d, Pete—“

“It’s different,” Peter finishes, loud. “It’s—so different, because your dad sucked and May—“ he sucks in a sharp breath. “May was, she was human perfection. She was the worst chef in the world and she couldn’t sing to save her life and she watched Doctor Phil unironically and she was perfect.” Peter looks up at the ceiling, trying to fight gravity, to keep the tears from spilling over his lashes. “She doesn’t deserve for me to have thought that.” 

“Maybe not,” Tony says quietly. “But you don’t deserve to get beaten up for it for the rest of your life.” 

Peter is abhorrent, atrocious, it’s a flaw in the very code he’s built from, an extra zero, it doesn’t perform, _if_ he wasn’t like this _then_ he wouldn’t have. He wouldn’t have. 

“What if you’re wrong,” Peter whispers. 

“What if I’m not?” says Tony. 

Peter is silent. 

“I think you’ve paid your penance, kiddo,” Tony says, quiet, sure. “Not that May, or Ben, or anyone would ever say you owed a penance for this. But—the imaginary penance, the fake penance, you did it; you said your _Al Chet_ and, and yeah. Paid.” Tony takes a deep breath. “I don’t know if this will, this will mean anything to you, but, once, when I was in a really rough spot, a friend told me this and it changed my entire—perspective, my whole life.” Tony talks with his hands a lot. His shoulder rubs against Peter’s as he moves. “It was Rhodey, by the way. He’s one of about three people I take seriously, always.” He gives Peter a brief but forceful look, as if saying _take a hot guess who the other two are._ “He told me that I can just choose to believe in something. If it’s going to make my life easier, better, if it’s going to lighten my _—burden_ or whatever, I can just decide to believe it.” Tony rubs his fingers over his chin. “I could just choose to believe in an afterlife for my mother. I could just choose to believe the world was planning to make me useful in the—future, that it was worth it to, to stick around. I could just choose to believe my mom would have forgiven me for thinking that about my father.” Tony scoots down against the back cushion, so he and Peter are at eye level. “You can just choose to believe May would have understood. Would have forgiven you.”

Peter feels—untethered. He’s the tablecloth yanked in the hands of a novice magician and he’s the naked table when the silverware comes clattering down. He’s dust sitting on the surface tension of a reservoir, drowned when a long-legged spider goes gliding through him. He’s bits of torn tissue and the way they float into the trash can. 

“What if I’m believing wrong,” he says. “What if it’s… selfish.”

“You’re not selfish enough,” Tony says. “You need to be a little selfish to stay alive. There’s no true altruism. Not even with you. You’d—die, if there was.” 

“So I can just say May would have forgiven me,” says Peter. 

“Try it,” says Tony. 

Peter opens his mouth. Nothing comes out. 

“Take your time,” Tony says softly. “There’s no rushing things like this.”

Peter thinks the words. Rolls them across his tongue like glass marbles. 

Spits them out like a handful of jacks. “May would have forgiven me.” Picks them up. Throws them down again. “May would’ve _forgiven me.”_

“Good,” Tony says, fast, violent. “Good. Now comes the—believing it.”

“Ha,” Peter says, but a secret part of him feels like this was an awfully good first step. 

“C’mere,” Tony says, quiet, an arm raised. Peter slots himself under Tony’s shoulder. Leans his head on Tony’s chest. 

One of Tony’s hands goes up into his hair, ruffles it, and Peter tries to shake it off. 

“Christ, kid,” says Tony, “you’re like a fucking cat. Looking at me, all destitute, practically begging me to cuddle you up, and then the second I touch you you’re over it.”

“I gelled that real nice, y’know.”

“To come to the lab? What a waste of time and energy.”

“And product!”

“And product,” Tony agrees. “Looks stupid gelled anyway. Leave it down.”

Peter wrinkles his nose. “I look younger with it down.”

“Yeah,” Tony agrees. 

Peter meets his eyes for a moment. Shoves his head back against Tony’s chest. 

Repeats his new mantra in his head. Hopes if he says it enough, he’ll believe it. 

Tony sends Peter home instead of stealing him for the weekend. Peter thinks they’re both secretly relieved. Tony is great—but emotions are not. They’re both awful with them, and being raw around each other is like a pair of magnets that used to be of opposite charge, but one flipped, and now they’re the same. They need a minute. Then they’ll be right back, at the hip, again. 

Ben makes chili for dinner—no meat, so they can put on loads of cheese. Just the way they like it. Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives plays on the TV. It’s colorful and loud and messy. It’s special. It’s—them. 

Peter laughs when Ben imitates Guy Fieri. And, watching the way Ben looks at him after, like Peter hung the stars, Peter knows, if nothing else, that May wouldn’t have wanted this to go any other way. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> ben parker rights
> 
> let me know what you thought; i’ve wanted to write a ben lives piece for a while and it all happened today at work, the whole thing in one sitting because apparently i can only write when i’m not supposed to be writing *finger guns*
> 
> also i adore may so don’t take this piece the wrong way
> 
> okay that’s all i love u


End file.
